As I watched jubilant teachers, wearing union red, from the Acero charter school network celebrate the new contract they’d won after a four-day strike, I had a flashback to the way things used to be. Wait, wait, as long as I’m reminiscing about changes from the bad old days, remember how recently elected Mayor Rahm, marching into town like Napoleon, took Karen Lewis out for dinner and told her how it’s gonna be with the schools?...
You could call south side native Allyson Gonzalez a puppeteer, but “alchemist” is not wholly inaccurate. How else to describe an artist who can turn used Styrofoam cups and shredded loofahs into tiny ballerinas? “I try not to buy anything,” Gonzalez says of the materials she transforms into idiosyncratic creatures on grand adventures. “Once I copied an Alexander McQueen gown. It was mostly paper towels and wire. I loved that dress....
Widowspeak’s Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas decamped from Brooklyn to the Catskills to make their 2015 album All Yours, which marked a shift in the duo’s sound. While Hamilton’s beautifully narcotic singing continued to reflect the influence of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval, the poppy, crystal-clear arrangements changed the complexion of the music in a big way—and with satisfying results. Turns out the change was temporary, though. After touring for the record, Hamilton returned to Tacoma, Washington, where she grew up; she was apparently in a state of flux, anxious about going home and what the future held....
ABC Olivia Pope is most forlorn when there’s no red wine in sight. Scandal flew below my radar for its first three seasons. When the show’s popularity really hit, I was all caught up in Breaking Bad and Mad Men and turned up my nose at any network drama like some pretentious jerk. To quiet the pleas of a fellow television lover, I finally gave it a chance and I was hooked....
Ludwig offered a number of possible explanations, rejecting them one by one. It’s not that winters have been warmer, or that there’s been a sudden decrease in spending on social services, Ludwig explained. Indiana hasn’t gotten any closer to Chicago, so there’s no reason to suspect a sudden increase in the flow of illegal guns to the city. A decline in arrests? No, because while drug-related arrests have fallen, gun-related arrests haven’t....
My theory? The people who’ve known Tracy Letts longest know him the least. I mean those of us who remember the enfant-terrible days of Killer Joe and Bug, the former a rude jest about a murder-for-hire scheme gone very wrong, the latter a skin crawler about codependency gone very, very, very wrong. Together with his Oklahoma roots, the two plays conveyed an impression of Letts as a postpunk cowboy avant-gardist a la Sam Shepard—the sort you can picture getting into a bar fight over somethin’ bad somebody said about Rimbaud....
So much for vigorous public debate of a weighty issue! No one can say the proposed nuclear agreement hashed out between Iran, the U.S., and other nations escaped notice at home. Republicans insist the Iranians bamboozled us, a nuclear attack on Israel will follow in short order, the whole Middle East could wind up in ashes, and all President Obama cares about is his legacy as a peacemaker. Democrats say no deal at all would be a lot worse than this one....
It’s hard enough coming up with a dance, let alone one about the discoveries of wheelchair-bound astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Hawking, of course, was diagnosed with ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, shortly after his 21st birthday. As his health has deteriorated over the last 50 years, so has his mobility. He now requires a staff of nearly 40 people to care for him; at least four remain by his side at all hours of the day....
Mr. Z We survived the polar vortex! For a minute there I didn’t think we were going to. The temps are back in the double digits today, and this weekend they’ll be pushing 40—that’s going to feel like paradise compared to the beginning of this week. The warm-up comes just in time for another busy weekend of live music. Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, two members of the pioneering industrial group Throbbing Gristle, have been playing as a duo since their band’s first demise in 1981....
Patricio Guzman earned his place in cinematic history with The Battle of Chile (1975-’79), a stunning journalistic trilogy about the 1973 military coup that replaced Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, with the dictator Augusto Pinochet. Since then Guzman has returned to the coup years with Chile, Obstinate Memory (1997), The Pinochet Case (2001), and Salvador Allende (2004), but in 2010 he took a break from politics and indulged a lifelong love of astronomy to make a series of shorts about the heavens....
As President Donald Trump came before the White House press corps last week to swear up and down that he hadn’t colluded with the Russians to sway the U.S. presidential election, I finished plowing through Rising Star, David Garrow’s massive new biography of Barack Obama. I have a different perspective. Yes, I know the book could have used a tighter edit, and chunks of it—especially the final chapter about the Obama White House years—could have been left out altogether....
In 2017, Chicago got a taste of Danielle Agami’s choreography when Nick Pupillo, artistic director of Visceral Dance Chicago, commissioned Pick a Chair in 2017 to music by composer and Wilco percussionist Glenn Kotche. This Friday, November 16, Agami returns with her own company, Ate9, to present Calling Glenn, her first collaboration with Kotche, on a shared bill with Visceral and Chicago stalwart Deeply Rooted Dance Theater as part of the Auditorium Theatre’s “Made in Chicago” 312 series....
The occasion of esteemed former pastry chef Sarah Jordan taking over Logan Square’s Johnny’s Grill prompted some justifiable sarcasm about whether a place serving $9 pancakes and cheeseburgers is a legitimate replacement for a greasy spoon that served its “community” by serving breakfast for under $4. We’ll see about that. For now it’s worth pointing out that traditional upscaling of the classic greasy spoon has been in effect for quite some time; cases in point include ersatz versions like Dove’s, Little Goat, and even Au Cheval, but also at even more low-budget, low-profile neighborhood spots like Danny’s Egghead Diner, where you can get a $3 cup of soup along with more specialized stuff like a $12 double turkey burger with provolone and cranberry jam....
Over their previous few albums, veteran Tuareg band Tinariwen have included contributions from a revolving cast of rock musicians, and their strong new Elwan (Anti) follows suit. Guitarists Kurt Vile and Matt Sweeney (Chavez), who jam on a handful of tracks, deserve praise mainly for not getting in the way, which is more than I can say for the lugubrious moan that singer Mark Lanegan drops on “Nànnuflày.” Apart from the marketing opportunities the guests provide, I’m not sure why Tinariwen bother—they sure don’t need any extra talent....
QI am a single woman, 31, in LA, and on OkCupid. (We all are.) I’ve gotten a number of unicorn requests. (Maybe because I mention being a subscriber to the Savage Lovecast magnum version in my profile?) I’ve never responded—until the other day. One unicorn request stood out. I wrote back. They seem like cool, smart, interesting people (a 40-year-old liberal married couple). Their profile is funny, and they’re quite attractive!...
For most of the year I rant and rail about the really bad ideas and behavior of our elected officials—and, trust me, I’ll get to Mayor Rahm’s $800 million or so Lincoln Yard TIF handout in a subsequent column real soon. So, good job, Illinois voters. And, J.B., if you come through on your promises regarding legal reefer, progressive taxes, an elected school board in Chicago, and more money for education—you can buy as many horse farms in Florida as you want....
Philip Montoro, Reader music editor Big Dumb Skulls This affectionately snarky blog, run by two servants of the fictional Council of the Elders of the Skull who call themselves Friar Wagner and Friar Johnsen, began with a question: “How many metal bands have taken great care to write and record their music, only to slap a big dumb skull on the album cover?” Beginning on January 1, 2013, the friars reviewed 666 releases (and skulls) before the Council granted them a “period of rest” last week....
A Beer Carol You’ve got to hand it to Steve Mosqueda and Sean Benjamin. They’ve stayed true to their vision even at the risk of their livers. Their Drinking & Writing Theater is all about the creativity that flows from inebriation, and their shows are paeans to the alcoholic beverage. Especially beer. Even hallowed yuletide traditions get bent (as it were) to their intentions. First staged in 2011, A Beer Carol recasts Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol as the inspirational tale of Bud Miller, ruthless CEO of the Milweiser Beer Company, whose piss-purveying ways are changed by visits from the spirits of beer’s key ingredients: water, grain, hops, and yeast....
Michael Gebert I went into Gaudi Cafe, a Ukrainian Village restaurant I’d been to with my family a few times, to check on the progress of a new restaurant from the same owners. Instead it looked like this one was closing. Art had come off the colorful walls. The counter was stacked with boxes. “This is our last day,” said co-owner Verònica Pineau. Gaudi Cafe Verònica and Betty. Then called Gaudi Coffee and Grill, it was the kind of polyglot restaurant with some of everything—Mexican food, burgers, salads, soups, wraps, pastas, and tapas at night—which often promises mediocrity....
Q: I’m a gay man who is ready to start cheating on my boyfriend. We’ve had a wonderful 3.5-year-long relationship full of respect, affection, support, and fun. I love everything about our relationship, and our sex life was great . . . until he moved in eight months into the relationship. At that point, he lost all interest. I’ve tried everything: asking what I can do differently, being more aggressive, being more passive, suggesting couples therapy, getting angry, crying, and breaking up twice....
